Health Tourisms Model of Mon Community Lifestyle in the Upper Central Region.

Abstract

This research consists purposes were 1. to study the health tourism of Mon community lifestyle in the upper central region 2. to survey the information related to health tourism from tourists and entrepreneurs, and 3. to present a model of health tourism of Mon community lifestyle in the upper central region. This research utilizes the mixed methods: combining qualitative and quantitative research. The research tools were a semi–structured Interview with 15 key informants, who analyzed the data with content analysis method. A closed-ended questionnaires with 400 respondents were drawn from random sampling and analyzed by statistics consisting of percentage, mean, standard deviation and factor analysis. The results shown that 1) the health tourism of Mon community lifestyle consist of 1.1) environment and Mon community lifestyle found that Mon people live along the Chao Phraya River and main rivers. Mon vegetables are planted for cooking and Mon foods are promoted for health and 1.2) for the culture, The Mon community has a traditional Mon lifestyle and still continue 2) The surveys of Mon communities found that Mon food menu, which is beneficial to the health. For the components of marketing factors and behavior of tourists in terms of health and lifestyle of Mon people, there were 3 factors, which were facilities to support tourism, public relations and advertising, and health tourism of Mon community lifestyle and 3) the health tourism model for the Mon community lifestyle consists of specific routes, which were specific areas of tourism and link paths. There was a form of health tourism activities for the Mon community lifestyle in the upper central region linked to the Mon community attractions in all 4 areas by choosing a seasonal period where healthy Mon food is available during that time as a food calendar to link between areas.